Just some words

Thumbs down on Transformers 2. Thumbs up on helping some kids start a pizzaria. (more on that later). I saw G.I. Joe in Managua. It served its purpose. News from the medical office: for those of you in the know, the tests came back and everything looks good. We are overwhelmed with joy and relief. LAPC (Life After Peace Corps) is beginning to take shape for us. It is a lot to consider. It will be difficult to not be volunteers. What Heather didn´t say about the volcano trip is that at the beginning of the hike there were kids selling sticks they had cut down for walking sticks. They were five Quetzales each. I bought one. After the hike there were kids at the bottom of the trail asking everyone to gift them their sticks. I told them "no, I paid Q5 for this stick." What does this have to do with anything? Well, I gathered a handful of the kids together and started "La cooperativa de niños palitos" or "the twig kid cooperative." Here is how it works: They all work together, set up a stand at the base of the volcano with a sign that explains that they sell sticks for Q5 and buy them back for Q2. That means that they are essentially renting the sticks for Q3. In this manner, they eliminate the competition by working together, stop cutting sticks, earn more money, and stop bothering the tourists. While to some, this may seem like an elaborate scheme to sell my stick back to poor kids, but it goes further than that. I don´t need Q2 as much as I need them to learn that if you buy something for Q2 and sell it for Q5, you have earned Q3 without doing any work and that asking tourists to gift them murchandise they have already purchased is not sustainable. The point is, I was on VACATION! There is no escape. Ever. The world is made up of just so many components and I don´t think I will ever be able to stop trying to show to the individual possesors of each component the potential whole. We are built on independence. It´s what we value in our culture. Why? We all have so much to share and for too long we won´t consider sharing it without asking "what´s in it for me?" without even thinking about the fact that if everyone forgot themselves for just a moment, we would all be in someone´s thoughts and have someone else in ours. The "me first" mentality will implode our world. We need to turn outward. First.

So, thanks for letting me blow off some steam. Things are going great here. We love our work and eveyday we learn more that we will carry with us and use for the rest of our lives. We love and understand each other more now than I think we ever would have without this experience. Our family will be stronger for it, our lives richer, and our spirits inseperable. Thank you everybody who has supported us in this service and continues to support us with comments and letters and e-mail and the occasional package. We love you.

No pictures today because I wasn´t planning on updating the blog. Other news, however, Mt. Dew appeared in an grocery store in Managua. Just a promotion. A trial. They weren´t even cold. I bought six and carried them back six hours home, where they sit, chilled in the refridgerator, waiting for me. It´s the first I have seen and there may never be anymore in this country again. Doin´the Dew, Nica style.